Reflections on the Protection of 'Vulnerable' Consumers Under EU Law

Abstract

This article seeks to explore the concept of the ‘vulnerable’ consumer and to reflect on how EU law protects, or fails to protect, such consumers. Section I of the article considers the current situation with regard to the protection of ‘vulnerable’ consumers under EU law. The section first examines key EU consumer protection instruments to establish how they address the position of ‘vulnerable’ consumers, before proceeding to review relevant case law of the Court of Justice on this issue. Section II examines in more detail the concept of ‘vulnerability’ with regard to consumers, and considers the many different causes of vulnerability. This is linked to a discussion of the related concept of the ‘average’ consumers. The second part of the article reflects on how EU law could better provide protection to disadvantaged or ‘vulnerable’ consumers. The article concludes that the current ‘one size fits all’ category of ‘vulnerability’ found in EU law is inadequate to provide the protection for the many different kinds of disadvantaged consumers who can fall under the general category of ‘vulnerable’, and that more targeted measures, and a recognition of the diversity of all consumers, would provide greater levels protection.